


41 Years

by artitties



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: M/M, Mild Gore, REALLY SHORT shorts, beets lives au, descriptions of eye trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:27:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artitties/pseuds/artitties
Summary: Paragus, Beets, and Broly spend 41 years together on Vampa.





	41 Years

**Author's Note:**

> a selection of snippets from the "what if" scenario of beets being left alive

Trying to get any sort of signal on his comms unit was an absolutely hopeless task at this point, but the device offered certain benefits. It allowed communication between himself and the grounded ship, which was useful if an emergency cropped up. The auto-updating terrain map allowed them to navigate Vampa a little easier and mark certain dangers or safe areas within it.

Though the only thing that currently held Beets’ interest about the little handheld touchscreen was that it still kept track of the time, ticking away without care and showing it was about mid-afternoon on planet Vegeta.

They'd been stranded for two weeks, their on-board water reserves had been stretched as far as possible and still only managed to last just over ten days. Although while there seemed to be no surface water on the planetoid, it was freezing at night and scalding in the day, with the times between thick with humidity. As the day cooled into night the moisture dripped from the cave ceiling and onto the plastic sheet Beets had then positioned below, the drops collecting steadily into a container. Paragus had gone to hunt something for them to eat as however unpalatable the meat of the native ticks was, it turned out it was perfectly safe to consume, so that was the issue of food and water resolved.

Beets startled at the sound of shifting of rocks at the mouth of the cave, scrambling for the energy pistol stored in the pouch around his hips and positioning himself between the source of the noise and the sleeping child behind him. It was a Saiyan who stepped in, his face shadowed by dim yellow light of the planetoid's setting sun behind him. Beets exhaled a breath, returning the gun and lifting himself to his feet to assist Paragus with the giant tick egg he'd tucked under one arm.

"You know those guns don't do a damn thing against those things," Paragus grumbled, unloading the giant oozing claw he held in the other arm heavily onto the ground. Broly began to stir at the noise.

"Well, it's not like I have very many other options," Beets sighed, kneeling down to gently shake the child awake

Paragus added nothing and Beets was grateful. He'd already heard the worst of Paragus' thoughts on being stuck with a non-combat officer--  _A Damn Engineer_ , he'd sneered-- and Beets was in little mood to hear them again. Instead, Paragus cracked a hole through the tough shell of tick egg with the ball of his palm, tearing away the thick membrane inside before offering it to Broly, who had been watching hungrily from his kneeling position beside Beets once he had awoken. Broly hopped to his feet, making a reach for the thick, bitter yolk inside before being stopped by his father’s hand blocking the way.

"What do you say, Broly?" He asked, voice low.

"T-... Thank you... Father," Broly stammered quietly, putting some thought into remembering the correct response. Paragus nodded and allowed the boy past to eagerly scoop handfuls of the yolk into his mouth, seeming not to care for the unpleasant taste.

"Very Good. Are we almost done here?" Paragus had turned his attention to Beets, who glanced back at the nearly-full bucket of collected water.

"Looks like it."

"Then we'll eat and head back to the ship before the sun sets," Paragus sucked a smear of the bitter yolk from the back of a gloved finger, "Did you get the environment controls working?"

Beets nodded, outside of finding sources of water and food it had been his main priority since being stranded. The temperature at night dipped viciously and the last thing he wanted to do was die of hypothermia.

"Yeah, should be all set."

Paragus hummed an acknowledgement. The damn engineer was turning out to be worth the trouble.

 

-

 

It wasn’t often that Broly stayed around Beets, not unless they were eating or sleeping. Beets couldn’t say he could offer much that the kid might be interested in. Paragus either had him out training or hunting and Beets himself had never really learned how to talk to children. He figured Broly was about five, or six. Still pretty small with a mop of dark hair typical to any Saiyan, a quiet nature and a sweet, half-lidded expression that almost made Beets forget about the kid’s immense latent power. He looked back to the ships console and entered a few commands, rows of text flashing in response.

“What is that?” Broly asked in a soft voice, stepping up to Beets’ side and peering over the arm of the chair at the console screen.

“This?” Beets pointed at the screen, looking down at Broly quizzically, “It displays different information about the ship’s status. I’m checking to see if there have been any passing vessels or responses to our emergency signal.”

There hadn’t been.

The armrest of the chair squeaked a little as Broly clenched his fists around it, before shyly continuing, “How-... How does it tell you those things?”

It took Beets an embarrassing moment to realise what Broly was asking.

“Well, um-...” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat for a moment, before clearing the screen and heaving the deceptively heavy kid over the armrest and onto his lap, eye level with the console. Beets tapped in a few symbols and pointed to them.

“This is my name. Beets. The first symbol here,” he tapped the screen for emphasis, “sounds like ‘buh’. There are a lot of symbols and they all have a sound to match.”

Beets continued to type another word on the line just below.

“This says ‘Broly’, your name. See how they both start with the same symbol? Our names both start with ‘buh’,” He smiled down at Broly, whose eyes widened slightly with the understanding.

“Bah also starts with ‘buh’,” Broly added and Beets laughed, gently ruffling the kid’s mess of hair.

 

-

 

“It’s just a scrape, stop being such a child,” Paragus chided as Beets nursed a fresh wound on the mid of his tail, the fur surrounding it matted with blood.

“You try having a tick decide that your tail is dinner,” He whined, but Paragus slapped his fussing hands away, taking hold of Beets’ tail with one hand and raising the other to his mouth to tear a strip of fabric from the hem of his glove. Beets bit back a wail at the contact, his already over-sensitive tail throbbing with the agony of the injury and Paragus’ grip. Paragus neatly tied the makeshift bandage around the cut and Beets exhaled a breath as the other saiyan released his hold.

“Warriors keep their tails close to their bodies so this exact thing doesn’t happen,” he grumbled without sympathy.

“You know I’m not a warrior--” Beets began before being cut off.

“Start behaving like one and live, or keep making excuses and die. Either way I don’t give a damn.”

Beets tensed at the iciness in Paragus’ tone. Gritting his teeth, the slim length of Beets' wounded tail curled into position around his waist in two neat loops. He looked back towards Paragus incredulously as confirmation of orders followed, only to find Paragus' gaze lingering at his waist for a moment before tearing it away. He gave quick nod of approval before rising to his feet, turning towards the mouth of the cave and ascending back into the saffron haze of Vampa's daytime.

 

-

 

 _It was completely unnecessary to shoot the damn thing’s ear off_ , Beets muttered to himself as he hauled the bloody green pelt back to the ship. So what if Broly became friends with it? There were more of these dogs on Vampa for him to train against! One damn friend on this hell of a planet. One thing for him to love, was that so difficult for Paragus to allow?

“What are you doing?”

Beets’ tail bristled for a moment, but he squared his shoulders and continued towards the ship. He didn’t have to answer to Paragus right now.

“Beets,” the voice behind him commanded.

“It’s a shame to waste resources-,” Beets fibbed, before finding Paragus’ hand on his shoulder and roughly turning him around to face him.

“You can’t coddle the boy!”

“Look he-, he asked me to grab it. Broly wants something to remember his friend. It’s not the end the world Paragus-”

“He doesn’t need a playmate, he needs to train. What are you finding so difficult to understand about this?” Paragus’ grip on his shoulder tightened painfully.

“Wh-, what don’t I-?” Beets floundered for a moment, “R-right, your glorious vengeance against King Vegeta,” he glowered, taking Paragus by the wrist and freeing himself from the hold. He shrugged the pelt back into position.

“Paragus if I understood your thirst for vengeance I would’ve shot you years ago when you ignored my instructions and stranded us on this rock together. Do what you want,” Beets continued coldly, “but Broly can have this.”

Paragus said nothing, and Beets continued in slow heavy steps back towards the carcass of their ship.

 

-

 

Given the limited resources on Vampa, Beets kind of figured this was an issue they’d have to resolve eventually. Broly was on the brink of manhood now, at the age where his physical form was starting to reflect the overwhelming power that teemed within him. He was about as tall as Paragus and nearly twice as wide as Beets himself. The clothes of his infancy, however advanced the saiyan battle suits were in terms of conforming to the current size of the wearer, were fast becoming inadequate.

The solution was rather simple, the clothes that Broly had spent his childhood in fit Beets' slender frame with ample room to spare and in turn, Beets’ uniform allowed Broly some more room to grow. Beets flushed, reddening at the embarrassment as he looked over his newly bare legs.

He'd thought he'd grown rather more...  _muscular_  over the many years on Vampa. To a degree that was true, the muscles of his thighs and calves were shaped pleasantly with healthy definition. However their stark paleness, when compared to the thick musculature and tanned skin of Paragus’-- well, everything--, made him feel a little self conscious.

Paragus hid his smile behind a gloved hand, eyeing Beets’ long, exposed legs.

“The shorts-, they are very short,” He added unhelpfully, as though he had any room to talk, “Perhaps because you are taller.”

“Are you going to keep looking at me like that?” Beets huffed, drawing his arms across his chest as the blush on his cheeks deepened.

Paragus cocked a brow, “Will you allow it?”

Beets thought for a moment, and decided he would.

 

-

 

Beets found himself shivering in spite of the encroaching warmth of the planetoid’s rising sun, and pulled the remains of Paragus’ shredded cape further around his body. He somewhat regretted leaving their various pieces of clothing and armour discarded on the ship floor nearby. Though he supposed they would do little to remedy his chronically cold hands and feet, anyway. Paragus stirred behind him, his tail snaking its way around Beet’s bare hips and tucking an arm around his abdomen in order to draw the saiyan back into the comfort of Paragus’ generous body heat.

“Better?” Paragus rumbled, his voice low and thick with sleep, pressing a kiss to the crook of Beets’ neck.

“Mhn,” Beets muttered a soft contented noise in affirmation.

Satisfied with this response, Paragus pushed a knee between Beets’ slender thighs and pulled their bodies closer still.

 

-

 

“Where’s Broly?” Paragus asked shakily between sharp intakes of breath, collapsed with his back pressed against the damp cave wall. The stream of blood that ran down his cheek and pooled into the collar of his cape beginning to subside as Beets pressed a scrap of the white fabric to Paragus’ eye.

“He’s not here,” Beets offered quietly. Whether that was a point of reassurance or concern remained unclear between them.

He began to lift the rag from the wound across Paragus’ face, the other man hissing through his teeth as it tugged at the edges of the gash where blood had concealed into the fibers of the fabric. For the most part the flow of blood had ebbed to a stop, but the laceration was deep and raw and tore across his eyelid and through the flesh of his cheek.

“Your eye-, can you open it?”

Paragus groaned in refusal, pulling his face away from Beets’ hand as he raised it to inspect the damaged eye. Beets cupped the unmarred side of Paragus’ face with the other hand, stroking soft circles into the rough, sun damaged skin.

“I need to see it, Paragus--”

Not that he wanted to. Beets didn’t have the most resilient stomach and the thought of staring into the viscera that used to be his partner’s eye didn’t seem very fucking appealing at all, but on this planetoid infection was one of their biggest risks. He had to check the wound and clear it of whatever dirt and debris there might be so their saiyan metabolisms could take care of the rest. Keeping a firm hold of Paragus’ right side, Beets raised his hand again towards the twitching eyelid, which flickered aggressively in response to the gentle touch of his thumb as he pulled at the thin fold of skin and exposed the damage beneath.

 _Gods_ , Beets cursed silently. The globe of Paragus’ eye was still present, and with a surprising lack of blood that Beets was thankful for. However its structure was beyond recognition or repair. The cornea had been torn open and the dark muscle of the iris bisected in a jagged vertical line. The two halves of what remained of the iris gaped apart, revealing a window of grey fog where his pupil should’ve been. Beets swallowed his repulsion, removing his thumb and allowing the eyelid to shut before tearing a new scrap of fabric from the torn sheet of Paragus’ cape and dousing it with his water canteen.

“Bad?”

“Seems clean,” Beets evaded, instead dabbing the cool wet cloth at the crust of blood that had formed down the other saiyan’s face. He startled as Paragus grabbed at his wrist and pulled it firmly to the side, drawing Beets closer.

“We have to do something about this,” Paragus growled. His remaining eye drilling a wild stare into Beets who quickly yielded, darting his gaze to the floor as Paragus continued to hold his wrist aloft in a firm grip.

“We have to control him!” He began to shout, “I will not let that bastard Vegeta be right about him! Not about Broly, not about my  _son_!”

There was a pause, Paragus’ grip on Beets softening and allowing him to bitterly pull his arm free of the hold.

“I know,” Beets conceded softly, gaze still focused on the ground.

“I-, I know.”

 

-

In the dim light of the ship, Beets sat cross-legged on the tiled floor and fiddled idly at the circuits of a controller, pointedly ignoring the large metal collar resting nearby. He didn’t want Broly to watch what he was doing (though the kid did take an interest in all of his little projects), nor for Paragus to comment on it, even though they’d discussed the task many times.

The idea was simple enough. Take one of the proximity-activated shock collars kept on board the ships in case of the event where they happened to take a prisoner, and reprogram the thing to be activated on command via remote control instead. It seemed cruel-- and by the Gods it probably was, but they were steadily running out of options. As he grew, Broly was only becoming more powerful, they had even gone so far as to remove his tail and yet he still had moments where his power consumed him. Just as King Vegeta warned it would. Paragus’ wounds were healing but he’d been left half blinded, his eye utterly destroyed from the damage. It scared them both more than they were willing to admit, and what’s worse, it was their  _son_ that they feared.

Beets hooked the controller up to his comms unit and tapped in a few more lines of code on the cracked screen before giving the device an experimental push. The collar at his feet buzzed and flickered with blue electricity for a moment until Beets released his hold on the button. He sighed at the success.

A little shock to snap him out of those moments would make us all happier and safer, Beets reasoned. He wouldn’t be hurt, not a strong kid like Broly.

It was for the best. Broly would understand that. Surely.

 

-

 

It was so strange, hearing other voices that weren’t their own as they were guided through the ship. The distant occupied chatter of  _other people._ It’d been so long and felt so horribly alien that even Paragus had reached back to grasp Beets’ hand, lacing their fingers together tightly and stroking the cracked skin of Beets’ knuckles with a thumb. The touch was reassuring, both men keeping a firm hold as they were lead through the curving halls of the ship into the communal washroom. Their guide tapped the entry console and stepped aside as the doors slid open, allowing the pair to pass through.

Broly was already sat on one of the low benches of the locker area having been dismissed from Frieza and Berryblue earlier. He silently contemplated the small cuirass that had been left out for him before placing it back into the locker and struggling to pull on a black undershirt instead. He pulled at the high neck of the shirt, trying to work it underneath the metal collar that sat around his throat. Paragus offered a nod and Beets grinned, pushing his free hand through the mass of Broly’s thick, slightly damp hair, clean for the first time in a lifetime.

“Hey Broly. Look at you, all cleaned up. You doing alright?”

Broly nodded.

“It was warm. And wet,” He replied simply, “like if Bah licked me.”

There was an ache in his heart as Beets forced a chuckle, “Yeah, yeah I guess so,”

_There wasn’t much else for Broly to compare a shower to, was there?_

“We’ll be a couple minutes. You should go grab something to eat, okay?”

Broly perked up immediately, nodding again and tugging at the sleeves of the tight undershirt where they had bunched over his damp skin. Paragus pulled gently with their joined hands, and Beets waved a small goodbye before stepping into the shower area with him.

The room was a row of four shower heads across a tiled floor, still steaming slightly from previous use. Beets kicked off his boots and padded across the wet tile, turning the faucet of the nearest shower head and holding his hand under the jet of water for a few moments as it heated up. Gods, it felt so nice, the rush of warm water on his skin was something he hadn’t experienced in decades. The feeling sent a shiver up his back that shook at his shoulders and sent his long tail swishing in anticipation.

Beets grabbed for the hem of his armor, but Paragus was already in motion and pulling both shirt and armor over his head in one movement. Beets spun in place back towards Paragus, half-guided by the saiyan’s hands on his hips, finding him already having shed his armor and the scraps of his cape. Paragus’ hands drifted lower and found purchase on the curve of Beets’ ass, thumbing gently at the base of his tail. Beets’ tail bristled at the sensation and he let out a shaky gasp as Paragus pressed firm kisses to his throat, trailing up his jaw and meeting his parted lips. Beets keened softly into the kiss. Paragus wasn’t always quick to show affection but the times he did made Beets’ head spin with giddiness, even at their age.

Paragus pulled away, pressing his lips against Beets’ once more before continuing to remove the briefs of his combat armor. Beets followed suit, taking a moment to wriggle free of his shorts and kick them to the side before taking Paragus’ hand and pulling him into the warm jet of water.

Tilting his head up, Beets allowed the water to rush through his hair and across the parched skin of his body. It was incredible to think he could miss something so simple so much. Paragus resumed his hold around his waist, Beets dipping his chin down to press their foreheads together, draping his arms across the other saiyan’s broad shoulders. He briefly wondered what his old colleagues at the port would think of knowing he was here like this, embracing Colonel Paragus of all people, until that train of thought was cut short. There were no old colleagues. There were no other saiyans. Not anymore. Vegeta had been destroyed, so it was just them, the same as it had always been.

Beets’ content smile broke, he glanced down between the landscape of scars that their bodies had become and began to blink away tears. Paragus pulled him in close, his hand finding the back of Beets’ neck and carding through the short greying hair.

Under the steaming spray of clean water, being held tightly by Paragus, Beets’ slim, scarred body heaved with sobs.

  


-

  


“It's the latest model, so if you need any help-”

“I'm sure I'll figure it out, thanks,” Beets cut in, mildly annoyed at the implication from the grunt standing in the doorway of their newly assigned quarters. Sure he'd been out of contact with modern society for decades at this point but it didn't mean he didn't know how to work a damn comms unit. He tapped the touch screen and it lit up with all the data one would expect on the home screen of a comms device. Current location coordinates, local terrain and weather conditions, galactic standard date and time. Beets squinted at the display.

“Hey, has this been calibrated?” he asked quickly as the soldier was making a hasty move for the doorway.

“Yes sir, all ready and functional.”

Beets nodded and the soldier took their leave.

Galactic age 780. They'd been gone for forty-one years.

He knew it'd been a while. He and Paragus were old men, after all. Beets’ hair was peppered with more grey than black these days, while Paragus had succumbed to that particular inevitability some years ago. Even so, he could hardly believe it. Broly was now a good fifteen years older than he had been when they were first stranded and yet he seemed so young.

“I turned sixty-eight this year, Paragus,” Beets called out to the room, unsure what to make of this statement himself. From the small adjoining room where the other Saiyan was trimming his beard he heard a sharp laugh,

“Gods. You spent that long stuck on that rock with me? You poor old fool.”

“The ticks made good company,” Beets replied tartly, and the other saiyan howled until the  laughter broke into dry, strained coughing.

 

-

 

The dazzling golden light of the Dragon occupying every visible area of the sky should’ve been enough to pull Beets from his daze but all he could see was Broly. Broly, who had taken a form that the anguish of Paragus’ murder forced him into. Paragus was gone and time slowed painfully as the other warrior hummed with energy, and aimed it all at his son.

Beets couldn’t do anything. He was never able to. Not against Paragus, or Vampa, or this. The warrior loosed his attack with a roar and Beets’ blood rushed with ice in spite of the heat of the blast. It was blinding, yet Beets only saw darkness as his heart shattered, and he was alone.

  


**Author's Note:**

> did anyone else realise that shenron should have 3 wishes? anyway the dragon balls fix everything. beets and paragus live in a little house in the country and they're old and gay and happy together.


End file.
